“I have to get out of here,” Val said. “Before John gets home.”
“You know why I came?” Kayla asked.
“Actually, I have no idea. This isn’t a good time.”
Kayla peered into the living room-white sofa and love seat, a glass coffee table with a glass vase of pink peonies and Robert Gambee’s book of Nantucket photographs. White furniture-what Kayla wouldn’t give to be able to have even one piece of white furniture in her house. But this white furniture gave the room a cold, sterile feel, like a hospital. Val and John owned good, valuable Nantucket art-a glorious Illya Kagan hung over the sofa-the view from Monomoy, from the exact spot where Raoul was building the Ting house.
“We’ve known each other twenty years,” Kayla said. “That’s a long time to be friends.”
“Kayla?”
Kayla turned to look at Val, loaded down with cookbooks-Martha Stewart, Sarah Leah Chase.
“What?”
“You have to leave. I’m leaving. I told you this, remember? Moving out? Now isn’t a good time.”
“Right,” Kayla said. She reached for Val’s load. “Let me help you with those.”
Val seemed relieved. “Thank you.”
Kayla threw the books to the floor. They made a tremendous crashing noise; the gilt-framed mirror shimmied on the wall. “You gave the police my sedatives,” Kayla said. “You made them think I drugged Antoinette.”
Val knelt and stacked the books primly, like a librarian. “The police have their own ideas about things.”
“An idea you put into their heads,” Kayla said. “You gave them my pills. Why did you do that?”
“I had no choice,” Val said. Avoiding Kayla’s eyes, she left the house. She threw the books into the trunk. That was it. Val opened the car door. She was going to leave.
Kayla raced outside. “What do you mean you had no choice? That’s outlandish! Of course you had a choice. A choice between telling the truth and lying.”
“I didn’t lie.” Val pointed a finger in Kayla’s face. “I did not, technically, lie.”
“You told them I accused Antoinette of sleeping with Theo.”
“I told them you accused Antoinette of an affair. Those were my words.”
“But I didn’t know about Antoinette and Theo,” Kayla said. “They’re using that as my motive.”
“I know,” Val said.
Kayla threw her hands in the air. “I can’t believe this. You turned me in to the police.”
“I did what I had to do, Kayla, okay? John made this whole huge case about how I murdered Antoinette for her money.”
“But he doesn’t have any evidence,” Kayla said.
“That’s right,” Val said. “As I was sitting there, I realized that none of the evidence points to me. It all points to you. But that’s not my fault. You can’t blame me for that.”
“You gave them my pills.” Kayla closed her eyes. She felt an old sense of hurt-the kind of hurt she hadn’t felt since the playground. “Why would you do that to me?”
“Because you can handle it, Kayla,” Val said. “It seems pretty bad today, but you know as well as I do that you can survive these accusations. They’ll roll off you like water off a duck. But I don’t have a loving husband and children to fall back on. As you may have noticed, I’m all alone. All I have is my career, my reputation. I’m an attorney, Kayla. If my name is even whispered in connection with this, I’ll lose all my business.”
“What about my reputation?” Kayla said. “What about my life?”
“You’re a housewife, Kayla,” Val said. “I don’t mean that as an insult. But let’s face it, if you get blamed for this, no one will even notice.”
“That may be,” Kayla said. “But I had nothing more to do with Antoinette disappearing than you did.”
“You upset her,” Val said. “What you said about Raoul upset her.”
“I didn’t put a sedative in her drink,” Kayla said. “I didn’t know about her and Theo.”
“But you can’t prove it,” Val said. “Unfortunately.”
“So that’s it, then? You screwed me over because I’m a dinky unimportant housewife.”
Val shook her head. “I knew you would blow this out of proportion.”
“Out of proportion? They suspect me of murder because of what you said.”
“You’re being very dramatic.”
Again, dramatic. Kayla felt like she was going to cry, but she didn’t want Val to have the satisfaction. Dramatic Kayla. Sensitive Kayla. Housewife Kayla. All these years she’d stood up for Val, protected Val from her real reputation as a bitch, a viper, someone other women talked about in the most unflattering ways. Now Kayla felt like telling her about every petty insult ever directed at her. But Val wouldn’t believe it. Val thought she was beyond reproach. “How do I know you didn’t poison Antoinette yourself? To get control of her money? Maybe John is right.”
“The police don’t seem to think so.”
“Why would you do something like this to me? I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends.”
“Friends don’t treat each other this way,” Kayla said.
“Of course they do, Kayla,” Val said. She put one of her gold chains into her mouth and sucked on it like a child would. “Friends disappoint and fall short of expectations every day. Now, maybe you have a different idea of friendship. Maybe your idea of friendship is what we do up at Great Point-hold hands, walk in a circle, bare our souls. Do you ever wonder why we only get together like that once a year? Because that’s all we can handle. If we shared and gave and loved that much every day, we’d be exhausted, drained, and sick of each other. That’s why Night Swimmers is only one day of the year. The rest of the days we have to live our own lives and protect our own interests. That’s real life. This, Kayla, this is real life.” Val held out her arms to indicate her house, her perfectly trimmed shrubs, her green lawn. Polished on the outside, rotten on the inside, Kayla thought. Then in a series of quick, clean movements, like someone folding up a penknife, Val tucked herself into the car, clicked the door shut, and whooshed out onto the street. Drove away.
Kayla stood in the driveway. It was starting to get dark; between the trees across the street, the sky was streaked pink and purple. Did friends betray each other every day? Did they turn each other in to the police? Did they sleep with each other’s sons? Did they shatter dreams, destroy happiness? Her friends, yes. Kayla touched her cheek as if she’d been slapped.
At home, Kayla found Raoul and Jacob still at the dining table. They hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights; they were two shadowy figures, drinking vodka now. The room smelled of peanuts.
“How did it go?” Raoul said.
“Where are the kids?”
“Theo’s still asleep. I gave Jennifer money, and she walked with Cass and Luke to the Clam Shack.”
Kayla felt feverish. She looked at Jacob. “You’re still here.”
“Val was planning on hashing things out with her hubby,” Jacob said. “Not a scene I wanted to walk in on.”
“Kayla, what happened with the police?” Raoul asked. His diction was thick and deliberate; it sounded like he’d had too much to drink.
Kayla looked out the sliding glass doors. Theo’s Jeep was gone-still up at Great Point. She listened to die ice clink in Raoul’s and Jacob’s glasses, she listened to their molars grind up peanuts. She turned on the kitchen light and this startled them both. Raoul looked at her quizzically with his golden brown eyes. Eyes that, it had always seemed to Kayla, were flooded with sunlight. He was supposed to be her ally, her last resort, her safe place. And yet he’d betrayed her, too. He’d never said a word.
“Jacob?” Kayla said. “Are you on your way home?”
Jacob emptied his drink into his mouth, crunched the ice cubes, and stood up. “Actually, yeah. I was just going.”